L'embuscade sur les routes des abords sud du lac Tchad

In: La politique africaine, Issue 94, p. 82-105

Abstract

Ambush on well-traveled roads is the preferred technique of road bandits operating for centuries on the roads of the Lake Chad Basin. Seemingly a historical pathology, rural banditry is related to survival strategies elaborated in extreme ecological and economic conditions. But it is also a means of negotiating modernity, or particular norms of spontaneous capital accumulation and the circulation of sophisticated weaponry. Acting as lords of the roads, the bandits benefit from the lack of banking infrastructures, the porosity of inter-state borders, and the inefficiencies of national security forces. Banditry in the Lake Chad Basin constitutes a system of production that mobilizes many categories of people, including ex-convicts, the impoverished, and patrons with social status. More than a problem of law and order, this trans-border criminality is one of the main facets of insecurity in the region. (Polit afr/DÜI)